Email from Feb. 3

Hi, everyone!

I can't believe I've been here for a month already! Training ended last week and my partner, Deborah, and I said goodbye to our 58 other new friends and headed off to Nampundwe High School in Mumbwa district, where we will be teaching classes, organizing extracurriculars, and putting together events to educate the school and community about HIV/AIDS.

ARRIVAL IN NAMPUNDWE
We live in a hut that is round, with metal walls and a thatched roof, and about 12 feet in diameter. That is really unbelievably small. So small that Deborah and I have decided that we don't even have room for both our mattresses! We stacked them on top of each other and just sleep on one mattress - smaller than twin size - together. There is no furniture or shelving at all, so everything - our 50 kg bag of charcoal, our brazier (which you use to cook with charcoal), our basins for dishwashing, bathing, and clean water, all of our food, all of our luggage containing clothes, everything - is arranged on the floor around the perimeter of our tiny room.

The hut has "electricity." Brace yourself: this means there is exactly one light bulb - no plug or anything - with exposed wires that have clearly been electrical taped together to make room for other appliances several times before. There is no light switch. Our light bulb is on all the time, even at night.

These things are thankfully more amusing than annoying. On the plus side, everyone at the school has been very welcoming and Deborah and I already know most of the teachers and have been introduced to most of the classes of students. Also, Deborah is a terrific cook and all of this living in a rural area has really increased my appetite so everything tastes even better.

REALLY IN AFRICA
SPW has done a great job of giving us a gradual introduction to the rigors of rural Zambian life. My first day or two here were spent in hostels and strip malls not unlike those at home. Training was in a smaller town in Zambia, with a more realistically Zambian market, but our hotel was very comfortable. And now, we're in Nampundwe, and the things that everyone writes home about from Africa are starting to happen.

Such as: riding on the back of a pickup truck. As the final leg of our journey to placement, fourteen volunteers, all of our luggage, and ten bikes were piled on the back of a pickup truck and driven, in the dark, along a main-ish paved road at 100kph+, stopping along the way to drop off pairs of volunteers at our assigned schools. Our school was the last. At first, it was scary but exhilarating - I'm really in Africa! About halfway through the ride, though, it started raining, and we huddled together in our luggage and were miserable. (Although I wasn't that miserable, because of course I knew the experience would make a great story.)

Also such as: walks in the bush. Our extension school, which we visit once a week, is an hour's walk away through the bush - grasses as tall as your head dotted with little trees - along a little pathway. Little villages with a few round mud huts spring up every 10 or 20 minutes or so. Chickens and cows and goats and dogs occasionally cross the path, or watch you from a little bit away.

Also such as: being the only white person. I'm definitely the only white person in my town, and probably the only white person who has ever been in my town. People are curious but by and large very polite, and they try not to stare, and they try to greet me normally. The other night, I was trying to find cell phone coverage (my cell phone doesn't work in our hut) and walked on to the athletic fields in search of it. Pretty soon a crowd of curious kids gathered around, watching me - probably about a hundred, all in their cute blue school uniforms, looking up at me. I gathered my wits and taught them a "mosquito clap" - where you slap your arms and legs all over then say "Kill it!" and everyone claps in unison. Then I quickly made my exit. =>

HIV/AIDS
Everyone here has people they call "mom" and "dad". I have only actually asked two friends if the people they call "mom" and "dad" were really their moms and dads. Of those two friends, three out of four parents were not their real parents - their real parents had died of AIDS. Deborah's mom died of AIDS when she was 12 and her sister was 10, and Chimbwe's mom and dad died within a year of each other when he was 15. Deborah and Chimbwe have both lived with a succession of relatives, all of whom are caring for many dependents that are not their own children (about 7-8 in each case). Still, Deborah and Chimbwe are the lucky ones: fewer than 5% of students graduate from high school in Zambia, which both Deborah and Chimbwe managed to do.

I find it impressive and remarkably generous that Zambians are able to care for their extended families so well. Nevertheless, it's obvious that everyone's life would be a lot better if it weren't for AIDS: there was both more money and more love when Deborah's real mom was still alive.

Everyone knows how AIDS is transmitted, but there are still an AMAZING number of dangerous misconceptions around. A few:
- We visited two clinics and asked about HIV prevalence. In one clinic, of the 280-ish people who had been tested in 2006, 130-ish had been HIV-positive - almost half! (Virtually everyone who gets tested voluntarily is pregnant, and this clinic treats a lot of moms.) Down the street, at the mine clinic, we asked about HIV prevalence, and the nurse said she didn't know but estimated 5%!! Quiz: are you more likely to have unprotected sex if you think the prevalence rate is 5%, or 50%?
- "You can't eat a sweet without a wrapper." Everyone in Zambia knows this saying. Abstinence-only education has taught Zambians that condoms are not 100% effective -- so Zambians by and large don't think condoms protect them very much, and they just go ahead and have unprotected sex. This is crazy - condoms are terrific protection, particularly when you consider the alternative - and this belief kills people around here.
- Absence of decent alternatives to sex. People think that if you're in a relationship either you have to have sex, or you have to "abstain" = go to the movies. There is very little awareness of ways to have an intimate, satisfying sexual relationship without having intercourse.
- Denial of AIDS. When asked how her mom died, Deborah says the doctors said it was a fungal infection. When asked how his dad died, Chimbwe says the doctor's said Kaposi's sarcoma. Both are virtually guaranteed to be AIDS - so why not just say what it really is? One reason is definitely that Zambian is a Christian nation - everyone is Christian, everyone goes to church, everyone prays in the morning, when they eat, and at night - and so sex is typically considered a sin and something that you shouldn't be doing.

CONTACT
- Calling me around 10AM Eastern may possibly work. My number is 011 260 xx xxxxxx. But I don't have coverage in my hut and most of the time my phone is turned off because I have to conserve power since it's a pain to charge. Sorry!
- I will likely check e-mail in the next two weeks, but even if I get your message I may not respond because time is short and connections are extremely slow. Sorry!
- Grandma, I got your nice letter and picture! I have not yet received a care package I mailed myself on December 27th. Until I get it, I wouldn't recommend anyone send me anything. Sorry!

In conclusion, I'm very comfortable and happy overall, and I'm convinced of the importance and the impact of the work I'm doing. I would recommend a stint at development work for many more people than are currently considering it, and I certainly can recommend Zambia, which is a lovely place, and SPW, which is an exceptional organization.

Much love to all,
Summer